


Divinity Given

by captainpeggy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 00:02:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13822251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainpeggy/pseuds/captainpeggy
Summary: Some people thought what she could do was magic, the way she could strike with blinding speed and dodge impossible hits. Her instinct, her ability to read a fight and pick out the threats, the assets, the obstacles— folks had told her it was impossible. But Beau knew better, and she had the scars to prove it. Bloody knuckles. Sprains, strains, pain that never seemed to fade. She hadn’t always been this good at what she did.A study in Beau, Yasha, magic, and monkhood.





	Divinity Given

Beau never set much store in the arcane.

She wasn’t a skeptic, exactly: hard to be that in a party like this, where everybody and their mother could whip out a cantrip or two. She’d seen Caleb’s spells scorch away flesh and Jester’s muttered prayers close wounds; seen Nott fiddle around with the few little spells she’d dabbled in and Fjord blast enemies with eldritch magic. Beau wasn’t one of those conspiracy theorists who thought magic was all a lie made up by the government. It had saved her life too many times for her to think that.

And that was the problem. 

Some people thought what she could do was magic, the way she could strike with blinding speed and dodge impossible hits. Her instinct, her ability to read a fight and pick out the threats, the assets, the obstacles— folks had told her it was impossible. But Beau knew better, and she had the scars to prove it. Bloody knuckles. Sprains, strains, pain that never seemed to fade. She hadn’t always been this good at what she did.

Bruises, shades of violet under brown skin. They’d never faded, because she’d never let them. Her hands were always aching, swollen, fingers stiff but still strong, and they were always strong enough because she’d fought so they would be. Every punch, every kick, every reflex was there because she’d built it from the ground up, from a kid who made fists with the thumb on the inside, from a skinny little runt who cried when she stepped on a pebble wrong. Her feet were callused now, sandpaper-rough from years of marching barefoot. 

Beau was good. And she knew it. And she’d earned it. 

She had faith in herself, in her skill, in the precision and power of her strikes. Each time she landed a flip, she felt the shock of the impact resonate up her legs, and recalled the sprained ankles, jammed knees, and fractured feet that she’d bargained for the ability to do this. Beau had faith in her ability to snatch arrows from the air because she remembered the pain from all the times she’d missed, and knew she could duck punches because she remembered a time she couldn’t. She had bled for this. 

Nothing came for free. That was the problem. That was what bothered her about magic. She had seen it fell fiends, but she had also seen it fail— seen it fizzle out and leave friends dying and defenceless, seen monsters simply brush aside spells and guards see straight through illusions. Jester had tried to explain it to her once— the analogy that she’d used was that magic was like donuts. You could only buy so many from the bakery before the bakery ran out, or the owner frowned at you and went _“Leave some for everyone else.”_ But if you took a break and went back later, well, then maybe there’d be a fresh batch. It didn’t matter how badly you needed donuts. You didn’t get a Bag of Infinite Donuts if you were really, really hungry. (Jester had trailed off around that point and wandered off looking for Caleb. Beau had a solid guess as to why.)

You didn’t get a Bag of Infinite Donuts if you were hungry, but you could have Fists of Infinite Punching if you were willing to work for them. Beau’s staff never ran out of ‘spell slots’, or whatever Caleb was calling them now— it knocked folks out just as well at midnight as at noon, and when she needed it she could reach over her shoulder with confidence it would be strapped to her back where she’d left it. Screw wands. Screw scrolls. You could curl your hand into a fist and take a swing, and maybe it would hit and maybe it wouldn’t, but you could _always_ take a shot.

There was no magic there. Just practice.

And she’d never understood how people saw anything else.

//

“What’s it like?’

Yasha looked up from her weaving. “Hm?”

It was a cold night, with the promise of winter hanging crisp in the air: Beau had volunteered to take watch, and the logic had been that they should have at least one person up who could see in the dark. Yasha had settled down on a log and pulled out a tiny bundle of thread on which she’d been working for the past hour, and Beau had sat next to her, facing towards the forest and pretending she couldn’t feel the warmth radiating off of the barbarian next to her.

Beau cleared her throat awkwardly. “Uh. What you do. Whatever you call it.” Beau could call it a lot of things. She could call it beautiful, even, the savagery that sparked in Yasha’s eyes, and she could certainly call it hot. But she wasn’t about to do that.

“Oh. Raging.” Yasha sounded almost disappointed. “I don’t know. It’s just part of me. What’s it like when _you_ fight?” 

“Not like it is for you,” Beau said. It felt strangely hollow, like the words were coming out of someone else’s mouth. “It’s like chess to me. I learned it. Calculating. Reacting. You just… _do._ ”

“Beauregard, are you jealous?” Yasha looked at her intently. There was no mockery in the question, no smirk, no smile. 

“I— no. No. You’re just… different.” Beau rubbed her sore knuckles. “I wouldn’t give up my training. It made me strong. Stronger.”

“Raging doesn’t do that,” said Yasha. “It makes you weaker. It stops you thinking, stops you caring. It makes you powerful, but not strong.”

Beau scoffed. “You always look pretty damn strong to me.”

“Words can have more than one meaning,” Yasha replied, going back to her bundle of strings. “I could snap you like a twig. Does that make you weak?”

 _It makes me a little turned on,_ Beau thought but didn’t say. “I guess so.”

“I’d argue the opposite.” She pulled a red thread through the weave and looped it around the edge of the fabric. “I am not a creature of habit, Beau. I am not a predictable person. I cannot play chess.” A soot-coloured set of threads wove around the red, surrounding it like stones around the embers of a campfire. “You find yourself in fighting. I lose myself in it.”

“Why do you do it, then?” wondered Beau aloud.

Yasha considered that for a moment, pausing in her weaving. “Because it scares me. I tried to keep it in for a long time. It never went well. I would much rather direct it to somewhere it can be of use.”

“You don’t seem very angry,” noted Beau.

“You don’t seem very wise,” countered Yasha. 

Beau wasn’t sure how to answer that one.

Something rustled in the forest, and Beau lunged to her feet, staff in her hands in a heartbeat, blood rushing in her ears, poised to spring— a squirrel darted out of the underbrush, and she sighed. “False alarm.”

Yasha raised an eyebrow. “Excellent reflexes.”

“I worked for them.” Beau could see every one of her past mentors standing over her, staffs and spears and swords at the ready, striking blindingly fast with no warning. Her hand went to a scar on her forearm, but she shook her head and the image was gone. She slung the staff back over her shoulder.

“I worked against mine,” Yasha said. 

“How old were you?” asked Beau. “The first time it happened. The rage.”

The barbarian laid a clump of the strings to the side of her weaving, neatly sorted by colour. “I don’t know.”

“I was fourteen,” said Beau, settling back down. “Not… not the first time I raged, or whatever, obviously. But when I figured it out— that this was what I wanted to do.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. It was, uh. There was this other kid, and he wouldn’t stop heckling me and a… friend of mine, I guess you could say. So I figured I’d teach him a lesson. He kicked my ass. Called in a bunch of his buddies and beat me up so bad I couldn’t walk for a week.” Beau dusted her fingertips lightly over where the bruises had been: stomach, shins, face, forearms. “I got in one hit. It was the greatest thing I’d ever felt, all of it, even the hurting. Everything was simple for a second, and it felt right. Like I was where I was meant to be.”

“Friend?” inquired Yasha. 

“Something like that,” said Beau, pushing aside thoughts of clever brown eyes and hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and a laugh and a smile that could light up a room. “A friend.”

Yasha folded her weaving over itself and tucked it into the bag at her feet. “That’s interesting. People don’t usually get the shit kicked out of them for friends.”

“Well,” said Beau, “I guess I’m not usual.”

Behind them, a log broke and fell into the smouldering campfire, sending up a spray of sparks. One landed on Beau’s shoulder, and she brushed the scrap of glowing ash off. 

Yasha reached out towards Beau’s staff, and Beau flinched away out of habit. “Wh—”

“Let me,” said the barbarian with surprising gentleness, reaching for the staff again. She pulled it loose from its leather wrappings and straps and laid it across her lap, resting her palms on the worn wood.

Beau watched as Yasha closed her eyes and focused on where her hands touched the wood: from her fingertips, an ivory-white light spread across the staff, casting shadows across her face. She looked almost ghostly in the soft glow, even divine. Beau had met people like that before, paragons of the gods, paladins and clerics— but this was different. This wasn’t divinity earned, it was divinity given, and it looked as if it came to Yasha as easily as breathing. It was beautiful.

“Here.” The whole length of the staff radiated light now, shining like a torch. Yasha held it back out. “You don’t like not being able to see, do you.”

Beau took the staff gingerly, but it was cool to the touch and felt exactly as it had a moment ago. “Thanks.”

“Five gold,” said Yasha.

Beau frowned. “Did you just make a joke?”

“I’m very funny,” Yasha deadpanned. “Ask Mollymauk.”

Beau contemplated Yasha’s face for just a moment too long, her gaze drifting down to her lips. “Maybe I will.” _Screw it._

Yasha looked at Beau with her multicoloured eyes for a second that felt like an hour, then cleared her throat and glanced back down at her lap. “I can take the rest of the watch, if you like. The light’ll wear off in a few minutes. You should get some sleep.”

“You trying to get rid of me, Yasha?” Beau spun her shining staff so one end rested on the ground and leaned onto it like a long cane. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you didn’t enjoy my company.” _Lay it on, Beauregard._

Yasha leaned back, crossing her arms and sizing Beau up. “Not much of a show around tonight. Still want me to hold you?”

“I haven’t got five gold,” said Beau.

“Adventurers’ discount.”

Beau grinned and ran her tongue over her teeth. “I could probably swing two.”

“ _Friends’_ discount. Free for the night.” Something in the way she said _friends—_ almost mocking, baiting. She wanted Beau to react.

Beau slung the staff over one shoulder and onto her back, cracked her neck, and grabbed Yasha by the collar to pull her into a kiss.

The barbarian was expecting it: she kissed back hard, chapped lips catching on Beau’s, hands finding her hips and gripping just a little too tight, just tight enough that Beau thought there was a chance she could have bruises tomorrow because Yasha was _really_ fucking strong— and she knew that, she’d seen her fight, but she’d never _felt_ it before, and God, it felt good. The woman kissed with strength and fury and so much emotion that it brought tears to Beau’s eyes. 

Yasha slid her hands lower and hooked two fingers into the waistband of Beau’s pants, breath heavy against her lips. Beau let go of her collar with one hand, keeping a white-knuckled grip with the other, and pressed her palm on Yasha’s shoulder as she swung one leg over Yasha’s and settled onto her lap. 

“You barely weigh more than Frumpkin,” Yasha muttered. 

“Hey,” retorted Beau. “I could kick your ass.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Wouldn’t you just,” mused Beau. She rested her finger in the crease of Yasha’s chin and tilted her head down so she could look directly into her eyes. 

“I’d crush you,” Yasha said dryly. 

“Probably,” Beau agreed, leaning in for another kiss as Yasha tugged at the belt around her hips. Distracted, Beau’s teeth snagged Yasha’s lip, and the other woman let out something that might have been a gasp or might have been a moan, hands stilling. Beau reached up to tangle a hand in Yasha’s hair. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” said Yasha, inhaling shakily and tracing a thumb along Beau’s jawline before running her lips along it and up to Beau’s ear. “ _Don’t be,_ ” she whispered again in a husky voice, and Beau almost lost it right there but she kept it together and dropped a hand to her own waist to fumble with the knot. It came loose with a quick tug on one specific section of the fabric and drifted to the ground, a ribbon of turquoise. “Sometimes,” muttered Beau against Yasha’s lips, “brute force won’t get you anywhere.”

“You think I couldn’t have torn that thing off?” 

“I appreciate your patience.”

“Then don’t lecture me.” Yasha slipped her hand under the waistband, and Beau sucked in a breath and tightened her fingers in Yasha’s matted hair. 

Sometimes you didn’t need to trust in magic for it to trust in you.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoo! This one was easy to start but hard to finish. First fic in ages. 
> 
> This was partly inspired by the fact that I’m real gay for Beau and Yasha, and partly by the realization I had that Beau is the only character in this party who has no magic whatsoever. Jester’s a cleric, Fjord’s a warlock, Caleb’s a wizard, Nott can do some very basic spells, and Yasha and Molly both have limited racial magic. I just think that’s interesting, and I also think the barbarian/monk dichotomy is something you could talk for years about, so.
> 
> As always, instead of falling at your feet and sobbing with gratitude at you for reading (your hits, kudos, and comments mean the absolute world to me) I’ve got a thing rec: Spinning by Tillie Walden, which is a graphic memoir of the author’s years as a competitive figure skater. It’s sweet and sad and beautifully honest.


End file.
